The Lady Gregory Hotel in County Galway is being urged not to host a fundraiser for a hare coursing club.
The fundraiser for Loughrea Coursing Club – shamefully involving singer and coursing supporter Jimmy Buckley - is due to take place at the hotel this Friday 5 July 2024.
Join us in contacting Lady Gregory Hotel management and urging them to act to stop the coursing club fundraiser.
Lady Gregory Hotel, Leisure Club & Beauty Rooms,
Ennis Road, Gort,
County Galway
Tel: +353 (0) 91 632 333
Email: reception@ladygregoryhotel.ie; sales@ladygregoryhotel.ie
Lady Gregory Hotel is part of the Great National Hotels group which describes itself as “one of the UK and Ireland’s fastest-growing hotel and resort groups”.
Great National Hotels,
Suite 15, First Floor,
Clare Technology Park,
Gort Road, Ennis, Co. Clare
V95 YP48 Ireland
Tel: +353 (0) 65 686 2001
Email: info@greatnationalhotels.com
Protest against hare coursing fundraiser at Lady Gregory Hotel in Gort - this Friday 5 July 2024, 7.30pm to 8.30pm https://facebook.com/events/783670410589097/
A flier for the fundraiser stated that tickets were available at Gort Credit Union. When contacted, Gort Credit Union commented: "We were unaware of the connection with the event to this cause. Once we were informed, we immediately requested the organisers to disassociate us from the event and we are no longer selling tickets."
On its website, Great National Hotels says its goal is to “help people escape”. By hosting a coursing fundraiser, the company clearly does not care about the thousands of hares who try to escape during coursing after pairs of dogs are released to terrorise them.
The suffering and deaths of hares at Loughrea coursing meetings has been highlighted to Lady Gregory Hotel and Great National Hotels. At one event, two hares “died as a result of injuries sustained during coursing” and a third hare was “euthanased by a vet due to injuries sustained”.
Post-mortems carried out on the three dead hares showed “Patchy pulmonary congestion/haemorrhage in all lungs”, “Congestion/haemorrhage in livers”, “Significant blood clots in thoracic cavity” of one of the hares and “Congestion of left kidney” in another hare.
Previously at Loughrea coursing meetings, hares have been hit and mauled by dogs. In 2017, for example, 20 hares were hit or pinned and a NPWS ranger reported that he was told that one hare died and “was buried”. Another year, a hare was put down as a result of injuries, with a ranger querying how this was done as there was no veterinary involvement. On another occasion, a captured hare died “during transportation from Loughrea to Westport”. In sickening 2016 video footage from Loughrea, a hare can be seen suffering a severe mauling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVNxhz9FirI The footage shows the trapped hare pushed and pinned to the ground by the dogs before a courser runs in to pull the animal’s battered body away.
More recently, in 2021, four injured hares were left suffering in a box at the side of Loughrea coursing field for "approximately 50 minutes to one hour" without veterinary attention. The coursing club's vet told a National Parks & Wildlife Service Ranger, who was there to monitor the event, that he would check the four hares AFTER his own greyhound had competed in the coursing.
According to a NPWS monitoring report, obtained by the Irish Council Against Blood Sports under Freedom of Information, a ranger noted four hares in the box, two of which were dead. He noted that the hare steward partially pulled a "SCREAMING" hare from the box. The vet had a syringe in his hand, and the ranger asked what he was doing. The vet said he was going to put the hare to sleep, saying it was in shock and would not recover, and he went on to put down the hare.
The ranger reported that earlier in the day, at the commencement of coursing, the first hare released to be chased by greyhounds was caught and "VIOLENTLY PINNED" by two dogs. When it was retrieved by the coursers, the ranger stated that the hare "appeared to be dead. Its legs were hanging down and motionless". This hare was put in a box on the sideline. The second hare to be coursed, according to the ranger, was "also pinned by the dogs" and it too was taken and put in the box. The third hare to be coursed was also mauled by the dogs and put in a box. The fourth hare escaped, and the fifth hare was mauled and put in the box as well. In all, according to the ranger's report, six hares were "pinned", two of them died outright and one was put down. A further nine hares were run up the coursing field without being coursed by the dogs, presumably because they were considered weak and at risk of being killed or injured.
Shame on singer Jimmy Buckley for being part of this fundraiser. In the past, he has disgracefully declared his love of coursing and greyhound racing. He is on record as saying: “I always loved [greyhound racing]. I always loved coursing. Been following it for many years. Something you can never get away from, thankfully. It’s a great escape from the music business. It’s great. I really enjoy it. It’s great to be here in Tubbercurry [hare coursing meeting] – a great meeting altogether.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja134fAgcec&feature=youtu.be
There was widespread disgust in June 2017 after a greyhound racing report in the Sunday World detailed how Jimmy Buckley is “fighting to keep the sport that he loves alive”. The report included a photo of a greyhound chained onto a treadmill and another of Buckley holding the head of a mother greyhound as she suckled her puppies. It quoted him as saying: “When you have a new litter, I look at them and say, I wonder are any of you champions?”
Jimmy Buckley is a brother of greyhound trainer Pat Buckley, the individual who provided a sworn affidavit in support of a greyhound handler disqualified from greyhound racing in Australia for participating in live baiting there. Despite horrific undercover footage showing greyhounds being unmuzzled to attack a pig who screamed in agony, Pat Buckley’s statement to the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal praised greyhound handler Chris Connolly as a valued employee, saying “Chris is an integral part of our set up in my [Tipperary] kennels – we would be lost without him.”
SEE ALSO
Vet delays treating injured hares at Galway coursing meeting https://www.change.org/p/ban-blood-sports-in-ireland/u/30738517
“Positive test” for greyhound owned by singer Jimmy Buckley
https://banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/positive-test-for-greyhound-owned-by-singer-jimmy-buckley/
Watch: Jimmy Buckley Supports Cruel Hare Coursing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja134fAgcec
Please support our campaign with a donation
https://www.paypal.me/banbloodsports